SLUM VILLAGE’S BAATIN, R.I.P.
We were saddned to hear the news that Baatin (born Titus Glover), co-founder of the Detroit superstar rap trio Slum Village, was found dead on the 14000 block of Anglin Street in Detroit this Saturday morning, August 1st. The cause of death is still unknown and the Detroit Police expressed that in a statement. The…
EMINEM & MIMI FEUD HEATS UP…
We blogged earlier this week about “Obsessed,” Mariah Carey’s new track and video, which seems to be about Eminem, taking potshots at the superstar rapper, even though the video director has denied it and the Carey camp has yet to comment. Well, Slim Shady apparently believes it’s about him because a new track “Warning” has…
KID ROCK: “TWITTER IS GAY”; MORGAN STANLEY: “HE MAY HAVE A POINT”
Funny stuff… The Kid: Definitely not “gay”…
Home and free
After spending eight years in prison for a crime they did not commit, Deshawn Reed and his uncle, Marvin Reed, were freed today after the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office dropped charges against them. “It’s been a long time, but I’m home,” Marvin Reed said, surrounded by family members, his attorneys and media outside Wayne County…
No small beer?
After the controversy surrounding the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates by Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, there’s no doubt that President Barack Obama had hoped to defuse some of the tension by calling for a “Beer Summit.” The beer-themed meeting between the president and the two men, set for tonight at the White…
LOCAL MUSIC TIDBITS
*Congratulations to the local duo Nervous But Excited. The gals won a recent competition, sponsored by the Detroit-based Radish Creative Group, to make an appearance in the upcoming Michigan-made film, Annabelle & Bear, performing their original composition, “Said and Done.” More than 500 local bands, composers and solo artists entered the competition. After 10 finalists…
Voters: Get educated
With the Aug. 4 primary election fast approaching, Detroiters should be aware of the excellent voter guide available on a Web site created by the local nonprofit publius.org. Founded in 1996 by a guy named Vince Keenan, the organization is dedicated to voter education. A page on the site offers links to the Web sites…
EMINEM STILL IN POP CULTURE SPOTLIGHT
The tour that Eminem told us may or may not happen this year has yet to materialize. That doesn’t mean that one of Detroit’s favorite sons isn’t staying in the modern cultural spotlight. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Mariah Carey’s new single and video, “Obsessed” is perhaps a response to Slim Shady, who may or…
Motor City Rides
A lot of great artists have a bit of the mad scientist within. They do ridiculous and amazing things that most people wouldn’t consider trying — just because they can. New Boston metal artist and motorcycle and hot rod customizer Len Puch is a perfect example of this. We all get crazy and inspired ideas.…
Soldiers of fortune
The Hurt Locker has 10 times the thrills of Michael Bay’s $200 million Transformers sequel, and on a budget of $11 million. It’s not only the best action movie of the season; it’s one of the best films of the year so far. Fact-based and character-driven, The Hurt Locker, written by journalist Mark Boal, focuses…
Letters to the Editor
Michael Jackson not above satire Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah! After reading two letters the past two weeks that disparaged the funny article that Serene Dominic wrote about Michael Jackson ("Too soon?" July 8), I feel that I should drop a line stating that I enjoyed the article. The humor reminded…
G-Force
G-Force just isn’t wacky or fleet-footed enough to deliver on its gleefully idiotic premise. In fact, the five writers credited with overscripting this sporadically engaging but dumber-than-dirt kiddie actioner nearly suffocate the story in dull dramatic arcs, endless exposition and no-fun, overcomplicated spy thriller tropes. Take the guinea pig’s opening 10-minute covert operation. Instead of…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
No, I just wanted to say don’t get hung up about Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #226! Joe Cocker — Bird on a Wire (Eagle Rock DVD) :: Boy, what a difference a decade can make, huh? Ten years after his 1970 Mad Dogs prime, we find the Rotating Rocker in Doucheland backed by a buncha…
Departures
Cellist Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) is a capable but unspectacular artist struggling to find work after his orchestra disbands. Answering an ad for help with “departures,” — which he assumes has something to do with travel (despite the presence of coffins in the office) — he’s immediately hired by a gruff and cuddly old man (Tsutomu…
The “B” word
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing put it right out there: the possibility of the city filing for bankruptcy. But was he making an educated prediction or rattling his proverbial saber? In an exclusive interview with the Detroit Free Press last week, the new mayor set the stage for what promises to be a dramatic showdown during…
Eternal flame
Lovelorn Tom (Joseph Gordon Leavitt) is a victim of movies, pop songs and even the greeting cards he cranks out, all of which hard-sell him on the idea of true love. He’s all too ready to fall hard when his gorgeous new co-worker Summer (Zooey Deschanel) corners him in the elevator and tells him she…
Power up
When environmentalists and alternative energy advocates last pushed the Michigan Legislature to enact renewable energy standards, the best they could do was the passage of legislation mandating that, by the year 2015, 10 percent of the state’s power would be generated by solar panels, wind turbines and the like. That legislation was passed just last…
Orphan
Vera Farmiga and sleepy-eyed Peter Saarsgard play the yuppie saps who fall for her act, bringing her into their lush country manse, and into their lives, which are, you’ll note, promptly ruined. They’ve two children already, but a miscarriage convinces them that another will repair the cracks in their marriage. Umm, bad call. Despite icy…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Dinner and shows
Peter Mel has transformed a dreary Coney Island into a hip eatery that’s open all day. The theatrical ambience isn’t limited to the Broadway posters and show-tune soundtrack, as it spills over onto the menu. And the prices are quite reasonable, with mains averaging around $12 and appetizers and salads around $6. Be certain to…
Rhythm corps
Olatunji! Drums of Passion Columbia Legacy Tito Puente Dance Mania RCA Legacy Revisionism alert: The propulsive 2 and 4 of rock ‘n’ roll-rhythm and blues wasn’t the only big beat shaking America from the doldrums of the late 1950s, and these recent reissues are the forceful reminder. For Exhibit No. 1, we have the work…
Soul Power
The “hardest working man in show business” earned his crown here, with a frenetic, sweat-soaked headline performance that kills in this engrossing, if somewhat spotty, doc. Essentially a companion to the superior Oscar-winner When We Were Kings, Soul Power is culled from 1974 footage shot around the Ali-Foreman heavyweight title fight, set in what was…
Highway stars
Bikers. To some that’s still a dirty word. Do you picture a grizzled, unrepentant badass in black on his ferocious Harley, some sort of sleazy-rider Peter Fonda, one etched in prison tats and concealing bathtub meth in his gas tank instead of weed? Do you hear the subsonic growl of his hog? Or maybe you’re…
Midnight Madness
Four karate-leaping, pizza-scarfing, sewer-dwelling and mutated turtle dudes fighting crime with a rat for a mentor and a leggy human gal sidekick? Sure … that could work. What started out in 1984 as a black-and-white comic out of Massachusetts with a microscopic print run grew to become the improbable kiddie phenomenon of the ’80 s…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY JULY 29-30 48 Hour Film Project FILMMAKER FREAKOUT! After being assigned a genre, character, prop and line of dialogue, participants in the 48 Hour Film Project must crank out a four- to seven-minute short that will be screened and judged just a few days later. Started in 2001, the fest now visits nearly 80…
Honky-tonk (fallen) angel
Don Duprie (aka Doop) is one of Detroit’s very best current songwriters. That he writes in what some might consider the Americana/country-rock idiom probably means he’s more underrated than he should be in this city. He often gets the "country" label, even though Duprie’s approach to country is closer to the roots artists like Springsteen…
Gates goes to jail
If the po-po shows up at Madea’s house, we all know the larger-than-life movie sista is going to jail. We also know that she is not going quietly into the still night. Talk about getting loud! Madea is going to spread the pain far and wide before she goes down. Madea is a fictional character.…
Taxis
Listening to Taxis, Zoos of Berlin’s highly anticipated debut full-length, don’t be surprised if it’s hard to convince yourself that this is Detroit music, circa 2009, and not music from … well, Berlin, circa 1977. From just listening, one might almost expect that onstage the band members would appear fuzzy and a bit out of…
… like a horse
The Renaissance Center, a towering phallic symbol! The Joe Louis fist, suddenly a massive black dildo! And the Dodge Fountain at Hart Plaza? Oh, one can only imagine what wild sexual images that might suggest! Funny how your city’s landmarks take on an entirely different symbolism when an HBO series called Hung slaps its name…
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work
When was the last time you met a kid in middle or high school in shop class? I can’t remember either, and I have a 15-year-old sister. Information technology is at the forefront of our education, but those jobs are sent overseas, so where does that leave the office worker? And what would you say…
Up all night
Denny’s has finally wised up: The open-all-night megachain has officially decided to court the people that have long irritated diner staff everywhere — the often loud, oftener drunk crowd that rolls in after everything else closes. Maybe they hope to squeeze more business out of them by showing how ‘welcome’ they finally are at these…
Oh, brother
My brothers’ bands — proto-college rockers Anne Be Davis (featuring Ray) and cabaret mash-down revue Harry Chronic Jr. (with Lew) — are reuniting this week to benefit the American Cancer Society, a cause near and dear to our hearts. Our mother, Maggie — who had always been so, so supportive of all our musical efforts…
Time to get real
Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, a Democrat from Redford, hasn’t made much of a mark leading his party in the Michigan Legislature. That is, until now. Earlier this month, he came out with a plan that would amount to a vast change in health care for state employees. He wants the Legislature to enact…
Going nowhere slow
Q: This question comes from a point of real frustration. I’m a 26-year-old straight guy. Due to my being overweight, awkward and generally unable to attract women I’m actually interested in, I have only been sexually intimate with prostitutes and women of low caliber. I have never been able to sustain an erection during intercourse.…
Lit Up
Joseph P. Kennedy Presents His Hollywood Years by Cari Beauchamp Alfred A. Knopf, $35, 506 pp. For Joseph P. Kennedy, success meant just one thing: More. More money, more power, more press, more sexual conquests, more brilliantly orchestrated yet shady business deals, and more respect and fame for himself and his family. Kennedy was continually…
Food Stuff
New bottles — Tonight, Wednesday, July 29, the owners of the brand-new MotorCity Wine will publicize their business with a special pre-opening wine tasting at Grand Trunk (formerly Foran’s) Pub. Taste 15 different wines for $15 and get to know your newest wine retailers. It all happens 6-9 p.m., July 29 at 612 Woodward Ave.,…
All the young dudes
This past Saturday, the Wonder Twins headed to Small’s in Hamtramck for the long-awaited return of Detroit electronica-pop sensations Johnny Headband. Office and the Pop Project rounded out the bill. The Detroit-area Bangladeshi population also turned out in droves … but apparently, this was unrelated. D’Anne: When we got to Small’s, I was really surprised…
Getting up to speed
A handful of young café racer devotees are spearheading a movement in Michigan. It was only a matter of time. And the wrenches at Café Racer in Ypsi — set to open its doors on Aug. 15, with a Rockers vs. Mods throwdown this Friday, July 30, at Ann Arbor’s historic Heidelberg bar — have…
